Right and wrong

People’s ideas of “right” and “wrong” change—and have changed—over and over again from culture to culture, time period to time period, religion to religion, place to place… even from family to family and person to person. What many people considered “right” at one time— burning people at the stake for what was considered witchcraft, as an example—is considered “wrong” today.

A definition of “right” and “wrong” is a definition established not only by time, but also by simple geography. Notice that some activities on our planet (prostitution, for instance) are illegal in one place, and, just a few miles down the road, legal in another. And so, whether a person is judged as having done something “wrong” is not a matter of what that person has actually done, but of where he has done it.